Selections from Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

William Blake (1757–1827)
Biography: https://poets.org/poet/william-blake

“Introduction,” Songs of Innocence

Piping down the valleys wild,

Piping songs of pleasant glee,

On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me:

‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’[5]

So I piped with merry cheer.

‘Piper, pipe that song again.’

So I piped: he wept to hear.

‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;

Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’[10]

So I sung the same again,

While he wept with joy to hear.

‘Piper, sit thee down and write

In a book, that all may read.’

So he vanished from my sight;[15]

And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,

And I stained the water clear,

And I wrote my happy songs

Every child may joy to hear.[20]

“Introduction,” Songs of Experience

Hear the voice of the Bard,

Who present, past, and future, sees;

Whose ears have heard

The Holy Word

That walked among the ancient trees;[5]

Calling the lapséd soul,

And weeping in the evening dew;

That might control

The starry pole,

And fallen, fallen light renew![10]

‘O Earth, O Earth, return!

Arise from out the dewy grass!

Night is worn,

And the morn

Rises from the slumbrous mass.[15]

‘Turn away no more;

Why wilt thou turn away?

The starry floor,

The watery shore,

Is given thee till the break of day.’[20]

“Holy Thursday,” Songs of Innocence

‘Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green:

Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow.

O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town![5]

Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.

The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,

Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,

Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:[10]

Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

“Holy Thursday,” Songs of Experience

Is this a holy thing to see

In a rich and fruitful land,—

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?[5]

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak and bare,[10]

And their ways are filled with thorns,

It is eternal winter there.

For where’er the sun does shine,

And where’er the rain does fall,

Babe can never hunger there,[15]

Nor poverty the mind appal.

“The Chimney-Sweeper,” Songs of Innocence

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,[5]

That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said,

‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—[10]

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run[15]

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:

And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,

He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.[20]

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

“The Chimney-Sweeper,” Songs of Experience

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying! ‘weep! weep!’ in notes of woe!

‘Where are thy father and mother? Say!’—

‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.

‘Because I was happy upon the heath,[5]

And smiled among the winter’s snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

‘And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,[10]

And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,

Who made up a heaven of our misery.’

“The Divine Image,” Songs of Innocence

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,

All pray in their distress,

And to these virtues of delight

Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,[5]

Is God our Father dear;

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,

Is man, His child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart;

Pity, a human face;[10]

And Love, the human form divine:

And Peace the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,

That prays in his distress,

Prays to the human form divine:[15]

Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,

In heathen, Turk, or Jew.

Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,

There God is dwelling too.[20]

“A Divine Image,” Songs of Experience

Cruelty has a human heart,

And Jealousy a human face;

Terror the human form divine,

And Secrecy the human dress.

The human dress is forgèd iron,[5]

The human form a fiery forge,

The human face a furnace sealed,

The human heart its hungry gorge.

“Infant Joy,” Songs of Innocence

‘I have no name;

I am but two days old.’

What shall I call thee?

‘I happy am,

Joy is my name.’[5]

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy, but two days old.

Sweet joy I call thee:

Thou dost smile,[10]

I sing the while;

Sweet joy befall thee!

“Infant Sorrow,” Songs of Experience

My mother groaned, my father wept:

Into the dangerous world I leapt,

Helpless, naked, piping loud,

Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Struggling in my father’s hands,[5]

Striving against my swaddling bands,

Bound and weary, I thought best

To sulk upon my mother’s breast.

“The Little Boy Lost,” Songs of Innocence

‘Father, father, where are you going?

O do not walk so fast!

Speak, father, speak to your little boy,

Or else I shall be lost.’

The night was dark, no father was there,[5]

The child was wet with dew;

The mire was deep, and the child did weep,

And away the vapour flew.

“The Little Boy Found,” Songs of Innocence

The little boy lost in the lonely fen,

Led by the wandering light,

Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,

Appeared like his father, in white.

He kissed the child, and by the hand led,[5]

And to his mother brought,

Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,

Her little boy weeping sought.

“A Little Boy Lost,” Songs of Experience

‘Nought loves another as itself,

Nor venerates another so,

Nor is it possible to thought

A greater than itself to know.

‘And, father, how can I love you[5]

Or any of my brothers more?

I love you like the little bird

That picks up crumbs around the door.’

The Priest sat by and heard the child;

In trembling zeal he seized his hair,[10]

He led him by his little coat,

And all admired his priestly care.

And standing on the altar high,

‘Lo, what a fiend is here!’ said he:

‘One who sets reason up for judge[15]

Of our most holy mystery.’

The weeping child could not be heard,

The weeping parents wept in vain:

They stripped him to his little shirt,

And bound him in an iron chain,[20]

And burned him in a holy place

Where many had been burned before;

The weeping parents wept in vain.

Are such things done on Albion’s shore? ^[1]